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Conscious Awakening of an Intuitive Mind: The Western Esoteric Method of Seeing Wonder in Reality
Get PDFClare W. Graves and the Turn of Our Times
Get PDFClare W. Graves (1914 – 1986) was a psychologist and visionary who pioneered an evolutionary theory of human values. Based on research concerning differing views of “what is a mature human being,” he developed the idea of a universal progression of value-structures. According to the theory both individuals and societies may be placed in this progression. This paper attempts to summarize Graves’ ideas and his influences on others, while grappling with what I see as some of his theory’s most important problems. Refinements are proposed that bear on the theory as a whole, with a particular focus on how it applies to contemporary postmodernism
Introduction to the Special Topic Section on Integral Yoga Psychology: The Challenge of Multiple Integrities
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Sri Aurobindo\u27s Formulations of the Integral Yoga
Get PDFSri Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950) developed, practiced and taught a form of yoga, which he named integral yoga. If one peruses the texts he has written pertaining to his teaching, one finds a variety of models, goals, and practices which may be termed formulations or versions of the integral yoga. This article compares three such formulations, aiming to determine whether these are the same, but in different words, as meant for different audiences, or whether they represent different understandings of the yoga based on changing perceptions. The article also tries to compare the versions in terms of differences in emphases and/or responses to the problem of integrality, which Sri Aurobindo tried to answer through practices and resultant experiences
Long-Term Spiritual Growth and its Influence on Professional Endeavor
Get PDFThis paper presents a qualitative study of how long-term practitioners of Integral Yoga working in four fields of professional endeavour—business management, education, health care, and the arts—have applied Integral Yoga in their work and how they perceived its influences. The paper gives a brief overview of the nature of Integral Yoga, especially its aspect of karmayoga, and an explanation of the study’s method which involved semi-structured interviews with 12 residents or regular visitors to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram or Auroville. Ten common themes were identified which emerged in at least three of the interviews and in at least two fields of work. The report of the findings focuses on the participants’ lived experiences of Integral Yoga and its perceived effects in their various fields of work
Joy, Not Elsewhere Classified—Towards a Contemporary Psychological Understanding of Spiritual (and Secular) Awakening
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An Explication of All Cogent Scientific Conceptualizations Regarding the Non-Dual: Finding Nothing to Write
Get PDFSometimes more is less, even within scholarly writing, known for its all too frequent verbosity. This paper follows approaches that sparingly used words, even to the point of using no words at all. One example of this strategy is a renowned psychology article describing its author’s unsuccessful self-treatment of his own writer’s block, which led to a blank paper (Upper, 1974). Another, in the area of interventions, which are commonly seen as demanding empirical support to evaluate risk-benefit analyses, involved a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of parachutes in preventing deaths. This research was presented, but never conducted—as no controlled trials containing a non-parachute condition could be identified, which again led to a blank paper (Gordon & Pell, 2003). Both of these papers, which used fewer than the minimum number possible for a word count, illustrate the value of research that went less-far than presenting results about null hypotheses to being themselves completely null. Throughout a long career in transpersonal psychology, this paper’s author has similarly called for silence as the only proper response as a scientist toward considering anything labeled as non-dual—and has characterized all attempts to articulate conceptualizations directly about this topic as futile (e.g., Author, 1983, 2002, 2015). This does not mean that all transpersonal notions within psychology are incoherent or worthless, but those that attempt to pontificate directly about ultimate states, such as alleged states (or non-states) of the non-dual (or similar supernatural conjectures that defy empirical efforts required for falsification), reside outside of science’s limits. However, speculations about such notions continue unabashedly within transpersonal psychology. Consequently, in this paper the author painstakingly exhausts every possible good scientific conceptualization about the non-dual from a psychological perspective, but finds none to explicate. This does not discount the value of speculation from non-scientific vantages, such as the legitimate uses of poetry and art to describe and depict the non-dual in imaginative ways not to be taken literally and concretely. It also does not limit psychology as a science from pointing to the possibility of the non-dual, including studying people’s claims—and their concomitants about such a possibility, but psychology as a science has not yet meaningfully engaged directly in exploring this topic, and it appears thoroughly outside of any cogent scientific framework to entertain. Although this paper is written as succinctly as possible, readers are encouraged to take in the vast scope of this inquiry’s unstated implications in order to arrive at their own conclusions, and to consider deeply whether there might be any value in continuing efforts within transpersonal psychology, as Watts (1972) proudly proclaimed, “to say what cannot be said, to eff the ineffable, and to unscrew the inscrutable” (p. xiii). Perhaps it would be desirable to conclude that this paper constitutes the last word on this troubled subject, but not a word is offered, as even one word would be too much—so there is no last word. Alas, only silence suffices for conceptualizing the non-dual from the limited framework of science
Alchemical Transformation: Consciousness and matter, form and information
Get PDFThere has grown up, relatively recently, a nucleus of interests called ìconsciousness studiesî in which physicists and mathematicians, as well as neuroscientists and psychologists, attempt to discover the origins of ìconsciousnessî within the brain. A variety of approaches are employed, some based upon neural networks, others that argue that consciousness must have a quantum mechanical basis, or involve self-organization arising out of non-linearity. A common thread is a certain sense of optimism that ìthe question of consciousnessî will yield its secrets in the same way as, for example, the genetic code or sub-atomic matter. I must confess that I find none of the approaches or arguments particularly convincing. It could be soî, I find myself thinking, but it could equally be otherwise.î My greatest concern is that old habits of thinking and ways of seeing, which could, in part, be termed mechanistic or reductionist abound in this new field, a field, I believe, that is radically different from anything science has hitherto explored. There are deep philosophical problems still to be debated, issues involving questions of identity, the role of the observer, the movement from object to process, the role of the subtle and the transformation of matter by what may lie beyond. We must move cautiously. The issue is informed from several different sources. There is the subjective, which can be perfectly rational and, in a cer tain sense, scientific. The subjective includes knowledge and approaches from the personal, the psychotherapeutic and various meditative and mystical traditions. Then there is our increasing scientific knowledge of the brain\u27s structure and chemistry, as well as the similarity of certain neurotransmitters to molecules employed by the immune system, which, distributed throughout the body, may well be as complex and equally subtle as the brain itself. Speculations about consciousness, non-locality, subtle levels of matter and active information also come from theoretical physics. Such an influx of creativity, from the theoretical sciences, is to be welcomed yet there is a danger of a certain naivetÈ capable of glossing over much deeper issues. To this list of sources I would add the philosophical tradition, of West and East, instruments of investigation that are sometimes ignored by scientists working in the field. Anyone speaking about consciousness , for example, should be cautioned by Wittgenstein\u27s writings on language games. Indeed, language is one of the key issues in our whole venture. Having had the privilege of discussions with Native American elders who speak the Algonquin family of languagesóall strongly verb-basedóI realize how deeply conditioned is our thinking by noun-based Indo- European languages. Our acts of speech incline us to perceive a world of objects and of concepts. The creation of the concept, placing a boundary around thoughts, ordering them into classes, and classes of classes, seems inevitable to us and the very basis of our logical thought. It is therefore salutary to realize that an equally rational and deeply philosophical people do not involve themselves with the creation of concepts but base their thinking on process, transformation and flux. Were a Blackfoot to write an essay on the subject of ìconsciousness (of course this concept itself would never arise) many of the problems that currently face us-would never arise; a different set of difficulties could, to us, be particularly illuminating. in particular, since group consciousness, shared dreams, constant transformation, and participation in a world of ìenergies or ìspirits,î seems perfectly natural, Blackfoot philosophers may be less interested in ìcollective mindî that in speculating as how such a thing as an individual consciousness and a fixed ego could ever emerge out of such a flux. In engaging in these investigations we should keep Niels Bohrís maxim before us, ìWe are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. We must never forget that ìrealityî too is a human word just like ìwave\u27 or ìconsciousnessî. Our task is to learn to use these words correctly.
Chi Kung Facilitates Integral Growth: An Empirical Investigation
Get PDFChi Kung Facilitates Integral Growth: An Empirical Investigation C. Arnold, E. Bruggerman, H. Kim, & A. Combs[1]
Swiss cultural philosopher Jean Gebser (1949/1986) proposed a theory of the evolutionary development of structures of consciousness that describes the common ways people living in different periods of history interpreted reality and constructed their worldviews. These included four major structures corresponding to four historical epochs, an archaic, magic, mythic, and mental structure which remains dominant today. Citing changes in art, literature, and scientific during the 20th century, Gebser also proposed the emergence of a forthcoming fifth structure, that he termed integral consciousness.
The transitions from each structure to the next, which Gebser termed mutations, do not imply the replacement of previous structures. Rather, as Feuerstein (1987) and Combs (2002) note, there is a sense of increasing complexity with each successive new mutation, in which a structure comes to dominate the earlier ones. Thus, the modern human, operating predominantly in the mental structure of consciousness, continues to experience the world to some degree through the older structures as well. These structures are described elsewhere, and will not be reviewed here (Combs, 2002; Gebser, 1949/1986; Feuerstein, 1987; Wilber, 1981).
The integral structure of consciousness, however, incorporates a balanced synthesis of all four earlier structures, and was regarded by Gebser as the highest potential for human experience. Although Gebser focused mostly on the emergence of integral consciousness in terms of its wide occurrence across the human species, late in his life he came to regard meditation and other spiritual practices valuable for the cultivation of integral consciousness (Combs, 2002). Gebser was particularly fond of Taoist thought, acknowledging the play of all structures in Taoist practices and philosophy (Combs, 2002; Gebser, 2000).
This study was designed to detect the growth of the integral structure of consciousness in long-term practioners of Sundo, a holistic Chi Kung discipline that involves both physical and mental practices as well as the cultivation of character (Kim, 1998, 2000). Such growth might manifest itself as growth in the archaic, magical, mythic and mental structures said to come into balance in integral consciousness
